feria and Muelle Barón

(Tues)Por fin! I will begin my volunteer work in a school in Miraflores alto in Viña! I have been waiting forever for this, and I was able to try out the micro route, poke around the school, and meet my teacher, or rather one of the two English teachers that I will be working with. She is super nice, and I am absolutely bursting with excitement for my work to begin.

(Wed) Dani and I headed out early today before my classes (though to be honest I have no idea how...) to Quilpué to the Feria de belloto. This is essentially a flea market the size of a football field, or maybe two or three, it is massive. Dani calls it "feria flaite." I have never been to a flea market before. This is quite the recurring theme in Chile, things that normal people have done but I have never experienced. Dani sold some stuff while I wandered around like a little kid, getting lost in the stalls. I almost needed a GPS to find my way back to Dani. They had everything at that place, including what I think was used undergarments. I bought a little Cat in the Hat (gato en sombrero!) for $200 pesos, though I was of course tempted by the cheap underwear. By the way, I had no idea Quilpué was so big, but it really is quite large, and I want to do some more exploring there.

I caught the micro to class, and arrived 15 minutes late, of course on the only day the class started on time. From there everything went downhill; I could not find a micro to Casa Central and so arrived late there too, and was grumpy all day. I got tired of waiting for the 504 and was irritated enough to not want to pay the normal fare, so I opted to walk home. From CC, this is about a hour, if you walk at a decent clip. I did not, however, because I found that the walk home contained the Paseo Weelright, which hugs the coast at the port. Here also is the Muelle Barón, a large pier in the zona portuaria. How have I lived here for two months and never before encountered this? Further along I walked on playa Caleta Portales, where I finally got the elusive foto of the supermullet. I pretended to be taking pictures of the sunset; it was fantastically funny. Closer to Recreo, on/near Paseo Juan de Saavedra, there is a fake Easter Island moai, where I could finally get my moai sunset picture, which eluded me on the island despite 4 tries. There is also a mini-lighthouse in the Yacht club at Recreo, which was really exciting until I realized that it was extremely small and not the Valpo lighthouse, but good all the same. Lighthouse + sunset always = pretty. Later I went with Dani and friends to Journal, our regular Wednesday hangout, and pounded down 1/4 of a midnight chorillana, which we as a group devoured in about 3 minutes, if not less. Turns out it was a good day after all.